Happy New Year – Again?

By Brenda Hall, 

Yes, again!  China is celebrating the Year Of The Dragon starting today, and we all wish them health, success and good fortune this year.  Some of you may be wondering what the big deal is all about, so here are a few reasons why this Year Of The Dragon is so special for us, as well.

 First, I expect 2012 to be a year where we Americans continue to climb higher up the economic slope and regain more of what has been lost since 2008.  Dragons can help do that.  They are a symbol of good fortune and a sign of power in the Zodiac, and like our friends in China – we need to see Dragons as ‘good guys’ who are fearless and rise to tough challenges.

Dragons make good leaders because they tend to be successful; they question ‘the rules’.    Most Dragons also trust their instincts and open their minds to creative ways of solving problems.  Dragons also have a ‘soft’ side as well – they like to attract others to build relationships.  If YOU have been fortunate enough to be born a Dragon…. congratulations!  Happy New Year!  And may your year be healthy, prosperous and fun!  I, for one, look forward to 2012 to be an even better year than 2011….and I know it will be with all of you Dragons out there.

Preventative Medicine for the Information Technology Project

By Phil Smith

It is always wise to use preventative measures to keep your IT project on track.  Assigning a great project manager, utilizating formal risk management, utilizating of a system development process with tollgates, and implementing health checks are all examples of proactively working to keep things on track.

In this article I will discuss a few simple points to consider regarding the use of health checks for your project. A health check is a valuable tool for any project manager or business consultant.  I welcome readers to respond back with additional thoughts or counterpoints.

Definition of a Health Check

While I’m open to other definitions, I need to capture at least a basic definition here to support the remainder of the article.

Health Check:  An independent, unbiased review of the condition of a project. Ideally multiple health checks will be executed at various points in the project, with each one focusing on appropriate, critical success factors for the project, and appropriate critical maturity factors for the organization.  The scope of a health check should be limited to a preset questionnaire that is designed to help the project and the project manager.  Results should be reported in the context of degrees of compliance with required and recommended process steps.  Results should also capture corrective follow-up steps, and should highlight risks and/or issues that require attention from the PM.

Point 1:  Responsibility

We need to address organizations that are large enough to have the support of a program office, and organizations that are small and do not have a program office.

For large organizations, the question of “who is responsible for health checks” is easy to answer: it is the program office.  Valid arguments could be made for organizational leadership, or for the project managers to be tagged with responsibility for the health check.  However, I prefer the view of having a “strong” program office with the charter to integrate the health check with the SDP.  Even though the project manager executes the SDP, the PMO should, based on triggers (from events within the SDP) step in and perform unbiased, “external” reviews of the project.

Small organizations without program offices can perform health checks.  It would be tempting to allow project managers to do “self checks”.  Think of this as examining yourself instead of going to the doctor.  On the surface this notion has merit.  You know how you feel, you can look in the mirror, and you can think about specific ailments and determine if you have symptoms.  However, the leaders in the organization should be concerned that bias, or simply “being too close to the facts” could result in a self check skipping over low-lying risks or issues.  To avoid this, leadership can assign an unbiased person such as a peer or another leader to conduct a health check.  In this case, responsibility to make sure these self checks occur rests with organizational leadership.  Organizational leadership needs to implement the appropriate checklists and put processes and enforcement mechanisms in place to make sure they occur.

In both cases I am arguing to put an unbiased person, who has appropriate authority and is not directly associated with the execution of the project, as the executioner of the health check.  I am also arguing to put someone other than the project manager in the position responsible to make sure it occurs, and I am arguing to integrate it into the SDP. Read more

Bridge360 Celebrates its 10th birthday

From Left to Right – Chris Durand, CTO; Morgan McCollough; Brenda Hall, CEO; John Cavazos and James Cavazos. Morgan, John and James were Bridge360′s first employees.

Austin-based software application development company attributes success to its partnership with clients, employee dedication and innovative solutions.

AUSTIN – Bridge360, a custom software application development company, is celebrating its 10-year anniversary this week with a giant “thank you” to clients, employees and the community.

When Your Company Is On The Move ( Like Ours ) — Top 5 Tips For Eliminating Move Stress

by Brenda Hall

So…I’m packing up my office because we’re ‘moving on up’.

Been in this building for 7 1/2 years and it feels a little strange to be leaving it; it feels better though to know our new office space is going to be so much nicer – and bigger!An office move has its challenges, but here are some helpful tips in case you find yourself in this situation:

Tip #1    Make sure you use a good mover who uses recyclable plastic bins with rollers.  This makes life a whole lot easier than trying to pack, tape and stack cardboard boxes.  (most of them will break with the loads of books so many of us have).

Tip #2    Always order more bins than you think you need.  A good formula is if you think you need 100 bins…order 150….so uptick by 50% and you should be ok. Besides, a good mover won’t charge you for bins you don’t use.

Tip #3    You’re going  to find things you forgot you had….and guess what!….you don’t need it!  So, make sure you call in the shred-it guys with their truck and have them show up to pick up these stacks of things.  Nostalgia is nice….but keep it limited!

Tip #4    No matter how much extra space you think you planned for in your new location….you’ll probably fill it up right away, especially if you bring all that stuff from Tip #3 above!

Tip #5    Get good people to help you….don’t be afraid to ask everyone to pitch in.  At the end of the day, it all comes down to great people banding together to get the job done.

BTW….I learned I didn’t really need 5 wine bottle openers in my desk, so I’m going to take 2 of them home now

Software Design Considerations for Internationalization and Localization

More and more applications today are being used in more than one country and more than one language. For many companies that are looking to move their software products into foreign markets, internationalization (i18n) and localization (l10n) can turn into an ugly and expensive process. The trap that many fall into is thinking that modern operating systems and programming languages will do most of the work for you. Microsoft Windows® comes in multiple languages, and programming languages like Java and C# have built-in support for Unicode and locale-aware functions. The problem is that there are still plenty of ways to get into trouble and create an application that is difficult to internationalize and to translate. Making the necessary changes to the code after the fact is always more expensive than doing it right from the beginning. The good news is that with modern software development environments, i18n is not rocket science. Keeping a few simple rules in mind when designing software will go a long way toward ensuring that deploying software in multiple locales and markets is as painless as possible.

When designing for international software, there are three primary areas to keep in mind: data, locale, and user interface (UI). When thinking about each in the context of software design, the most important question to keep asking is, “What happens when this runs in a non-English environment?” A basic familiarity with the possible issues that can arise across languages and a few simple rules should enable any modern software architect to put together a system that can run across any language, anywhere. Read more

Machine Translation: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

by Chris Durand

Machine translation is the use of software to translate text from one language to another, usually without assistance from a human translator.  It is a fascinating field that is changing rapidly, but here’s my take on where things stand today.

The Good

Machine translation is cheap, and it is getting better every day.  I was encouraged by the success of IBM’s Jeopardy-playing system Watson in drubbing its human challengers. Watson’s ability to “understand” idioms and natural language will contribute greatly to the future of machine translation.

Translation projects vary in requirements for accuracy as shown in the following diagram.  For projects jobs where accuracy is less important, machine translation is a workable alternative.  An example of this would be a company support forum, with huge amounts of user-supplied content.  It is not cost-effective to pay a human translator to translate every post by a user into numerous languages.  However, a machine translation engine that has been tuned to translate support issues for a particular product won’t create perfect results, but may still be a valuable resource to users.  And creating value is what translation is all about.

Of course there are many translation jobs where accuracy is critical, such as legal documents.  And translations of literature, poetry, and the like will remain difficult for machine translation software for years since there is much more to this sort of translation than accuracy, such as style and other artistic considerations.

But with continuing advances in computing and linguistics, the line shown in the above diagram will move steadily to the right over time. Read more

We don’t need no stinking test plan…

• To make sure test results are reproducible
• To know how much testing is complete
• To know how much more testing is needed
• To understand what will and will not be tested
• To have an idea of the quality of a product Read more

It’s All About YOU!

by Brenda Hall

Time flies when you’re having fun!  It hasn’t always been a cake walk, but we are having fun!  Bridge360 is now entering ‘early adolescence’ and we’re looking forward to many more interesting and fun years ahead.    Where will we be at the end of the next decade?

No one has a crystal ball, but I am sure we will continue doing much of what we do today; giving great service to our clients with our ‘secret sauce’…great employees.  It’s as simple as that.  We have great plans as we continue our growth, and that is to make sure each and every client gets more than they expected, and we find ways to solve those difficult problems they’ve come to rely on us for.  We will also remain focused on finding ways to grow opportunities for our employees.   This is our culture – this is who we are – this is what we will continue to do.

Oh yes, and by the way….we’ll be eating lots and lots of birthday cake as we celebrate each and every new year!  Thank you to all of our great clients and friends – after all – IT IS ALL ABOUT YOU!  And a special thank you to all of our extraordinary employees who deliver solutions day in and day out!

Good News From Washington – At Last

How very fitting that last night, October 12th, Columbus Day, the Free Trade Agreements for Panama, South Korea and Columbia were passed. Now Montana ranchers can get their beef to the South Koreans who want to eat excellent steak! Now we can ship heavy equipment and fertilizers to Columbians who grow the flowers we put on our tables. Now we can engage with Panama on a more competitive level as it begins its $5.25 billion expansion of the Panama Canal.

These Free Trade Agreements will bring economic benefit to Americans who want to grow their businesses and enjoy prosperity. Americans can now compete with other countries who have already signed Free Trade Agreements with Panama, South Korea and Columbia. If you believe as I do that people since the time of Columbus and Marco Polo want to trade and sell the best of what they have to offer in other markets, then you know how important the passage of these Free Trade Agreements will benefit Americans, Panamanians, South Koreans and Columbians.

Ailing Projects: Should PM’s Treat the Symptoms, or the Root Cause?

by Phillip Smith

In my previous article I wrote about IT projects experiencing trouble, and separated the symptoms from the root causes. Doctors sometimes treat symptoms, and sometime they treat root causes.  Other times they treat both or do nothing at all. In this case, the project is the ailing patient, and the specific medicines that a project manager chooses to administer—and when—is largely a matter of style.

Some project managers are comfortable allowing a certain amount of churn to take place before they step in, while others work in a more hands-on mode. If the project team is seasoned and is using a mature development process, the PM can afford to allow that team space and time to work through problems without having to personally drive a resolution for each problem.  There is a balance between empowering the team and being so distant that you appear to be “checked out”.  Find that balance (it will vary by project and by team) and use it to your advantage.  Teams that work independently within a process set tend to accomplish a lot –  and they tend to have great morale when they are productive and know they have a PM who will drive resolution for issues when they need that kind of help.

While I’m willing to admit that the PM has a right to bring a certain amount of style to their approach, I’m also willing to make a strong argument that various situations call for certain “medicines”.  In the last article I listed classic symptoms of a project being in trouble. One of these was “high defect rate.”  We can use that as an example of a situation that calls for specific action. Read more